The invention relates to vacuum treatment or disintegration of a waste stream such as sludges or slurries of animal wastes produced by agricultural operations or alternatively municipal wastewater or other slurry streams. More particularly, the invention accomplishes disintegration and thereby liquid and particulate separation by various vacuum and heat drying treatments.
In cases of some input materials for treatment in accordance with the invention, useful end-products are obtained from all or fractions of the input stream. For example, in cases of treatment of egg-shell waste from an egg-producing or -utilizing operation, the treatment in accordance with the invention facilitates separating the shell from the membrane. The membrane matter obtained by treatment in accordance with the invention desirably contains collagen that is extractable by other processes still. The collagen-content of the membrane, after treatment in accordance with the invention, is optimally pathogen free:xe2x80x94that is, not merely allergen free or allergy tested but also pathogen free.
A number of additional features and objects will be apparent in connection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples.